Leavenworth Strategist

African Union Training Somalis to Counter Insurgency

By Alisha Ryu, (VOA) Nairobi, 16 July 2009

The African Union's special envoy to Somalia says the AU has begun recruiting and training Somalis to be soldiers and police officers to help the country's embattled government counter an insurgency led by Islamists with ties to al-Qaida. He says the pan-African body envisions a Somali security force of about 16,000 members in a year's time.

The envoy, Nicholas Bwakira, says the ambitious recruiting and training program for Somalia is a part of the pledge of assistance the United States, the European Union and other key donors made in April at a meeting in Brussels.

More than $200 million was pledged at the conference, much of it earmarked to support Somalia's transitional government's security forces and the 4,300-member African Union's peacekeeping mission in Somalia, known as AMISOM...

"We plan to train 6,000 paramilitary forces and 10,000 policemen," Bwakira said. "This training will be taking place outside Somalia. But some of the training will be done in Somalia. There are already some trainees, who are in Djibouti. So, it already has started and it is going to continue in various countries. We are looking at training time-frame of six to 12 months."

Bwakira says Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda are some of the African nations that have volunteered to train Somali recruits.

 

UN Security Council Takes Step Toward Peacekeeping Force in Somalia

VOA By Margaret Besheer

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution paving the way for establishing a U.N. peacekeeping force in Somalia, but delayed any decision for six months so it can assess the situation in the country.

Resolution 1863 renews for another six months the mandate of the 2,000 troops from the African Union's AMISOM force and establishes the Security Council's intention to replace them with a U.N. peacekeeping operation. The council says it will decide by June 1 of this year.

Africa Command to airlift peacekeeper equipment to Darfur

by Donna Miles, American Forces Press Service

1/7/2009 - WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- U.S. Africa Command officials are laying plans to airlift heavy equipment to Sudan to support African Union and U.N. peacekeepers involved in the country's Darfur region, an AFRICOM spokesman said Jan. 6.

AFRICOM members will transport about 75 tons of heavy equipment -- water tankers, fuel tank trucks, forklifts and other oversized cargo -- from Kigali, Rwanda, to Darfur aboard two C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, Vince Crawley said...

AU Pleads for UN Intervention for Somalia

(VOA) By Peter Heinlein, Addis Ababa, 10 December 2008

Africa's top peace and security official is to begin urgent talks on Thursday at the United Nations in an attempt to save Somalia's fragile U.N.-backed administration from collapse. The pending withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia is focusing the attention of the international community and Somalia's fractious political leadership on avoiding a descent into chaos.

African Union Peace and Security Commissioner Ramtane Lamamra is on a mission to try to persuade the U.N. Security Council to urgently dispatch a peacekeeping mission to Somalia.

The world body withdrew a previous mission in 1995, and Security Council ambassadors have since declined several requests to return the peacekeepers, saying there is no peace to keep in the lawless Horn of Africa nation...

AU Chair Meets UN Peacekeeping Chief

African Union (Addis Ababa) PRESS RELEASE

The Chairperson of the Commission of the African Union, Mr. Jean Ping, on Monday 13 October 2008, received in audience, Mr. Alain Le Roy, the UN Under- Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations. The meeting provided an opportunity for the two to exchange views on South Sudan, Darfur and Somalia issues.

With regard to South Sudan, the Chairperson of the AU Commission and the UN Under-Secretary General for peacekeeping Operations agreed that the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) should take all the necessary steps to fully implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA). In this regard, they urged all the parties to the CPA to do their utmost to address the outstanding issues and ensure the successful implementation of the CPA, in both letter and spirit, in order to promote a lasting peace in the Sudan.

Concerning Darfur the two noted that the Government of Sudan is willing to cooperate with the United Nations and the African Union for the full deployment of the UNAMID force. They expressed their determination to keep working together for the deployment, in the coming months of at least 80% of the authorized force.

African Union condemns Somali rebel attacks

By Andrew Cawthorne

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The African Union condemned Somali rebel assaults on its peacekeepers as "calculated provocation" on Friday and vowed to fight any future attacks.

Increasingly brazen Islamist insurgents have this month turned their fire on the AU peacekeepers, who number about 2,600 Ugandans and Burundians, with ambushes on bases and patrols.

New UN-African Union mediator for Darfur conflict takes up post

UN News Service, 28 August 2008 – The newly appointed chief of the joint United Nations-African Union effort to bring peace to Darfur arrived today in the conflict-wracked Sudanese region, pledging to consult as widely as possible with the warring parties to try to find a lasting solution.

Djibril Yipènè Bassolé, the Joint Chief Mediator for Darfur, has assumed his duties in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and the headquarters of the hybrid UN-AU peacekeeping force (known as UNAMID).

Speaking to reporters after his arrival, he stressed that any negotiations to resolve the five-year conflict that has killed an estimated 300,000 people and displaced 2.7 million others cannot take place in a climate of tension and mistrust.

"The Problem with Peacekeeping"

April 2008
François Grignon and Daniela Kroslak in Current History (ICG)

After a decade of dramatic failures in the 1990s—in Somalia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone—peacekeeping operations are coming back into fashion as a primary international tool for protecting civilians in Africa. The United Nations and the African Union (AU), sometimes supported by the European Union, are increasing the number of peacekeepers on the continent this year, with new missions in, among other places, Sudan’s Darfur region, Chad, the Central African Republic, and Somalia. Four other peacekeeping missions were already in place before this latest surge of operations—in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Sudan. This expanded activity is a direct result of the UN Security Council’s finally accepting the need to challenge state authority and explicitly mandate peacekeeping missions to protect civilians under imminent threat. This should be good news, right?

UN, AU Envoys Say Chad-Sudan Relations Holding Up Darfur Peace Deal

By VOA News
08 April 2008
United Nations and African Union envoys say hostilities between Chad and Sudan are standing in the way of a potential peace deal in Darfur.

Speaking to reporters in Khartoum Tuesday, U.N. envoy Jan Eliasson said it is impossible to separate violence between the two countries from the violence in Darfur.

EU aid chief says rising food prices risk African 'humanitarian tsunami'

By Leigh Phillips (EUobserver)
As food riots sweep the developing world, the EU's foreign aid chief has warned that sky-rocketing food price rises threaten a "humanitarian tsunami" in Africa, and has promised a boost in aid to support food security.

"A global food crisis is becoming apparent," said EU humanitarian aid commissioner Louis Michel after a meeting with African Union Commission President Jean Ping, "less visible than the oil crisis, but with the potential effect of a real economic and humanitarian tsunami in Africa."

Peacekeeping in Darfur Hits More Obstacles

By LYDIA POLGREEN (New York Times)

ABU SUROUJ, Sudan — As Darfur smolders in the aftermath of a new government offensive, a long-sought peacekeeping force, expected to be the world’s largest, is in danger of failing even as it begins its mission because of bureaucratic delays, stonewalling by Sudan’s government and reluctance from troop-contributing countries to send peacekeeping forces into an active conflict.

The force, a joint mission of the African Union and the United Nations, officially took over from an overstretched and exhausted African Union force in Darfur on Jan. 1. It now has just over 9,000 of an expected 26,000 soldiers and police officers and will not fully deploy until the end of the year, United Nations officials said.

UN council renews authority for AU force in Somalia

By Patrick Worsnip

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council renewed authority on Wednesday for a small African Union peace force in Somalia and agreed to debate next month the thorny issue of whether U.N. peacekeepers should go there.

A council resolution extended for six months U.N. endorsement of the AU mission in the lawless country, which currently consists of two Ugandan battalions, totaling some 1,600 troops, and an advance party of 192 Burundians.

African Union needs help

By Emmanuel Goujon, AFP	Published:Jan 30, 2008
ADDIS ABABA - The African Union (AU) starts a heads of state summit in Addis Ababa seeking to bolster the body’s capacity to solve conflicts such as the crises in Darfur and Somalia. The African Mission in Sudan (Amis) deployed in August 2004 was the first time the continental body had succeeded in imposing a military deployment on the soil of one of its member states. But the force has suffered from a lack of funds and equipment, its 7,000-plus troops have been paid intermittently and been unable to make a serious impact on the ground.

Sudan admits attacking UN/AU Darfur peacekeepers

Thu Jan 10, 2008 By Andrew Heavens

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Sudan admitted on Thursday that its troops had opened fire on a joint U.N./African Union peacekeeping convoy in Darfur, contradicting an earlier denial by its ambassador to the United Nations.

A spokesman for the Sudanese armed forces said the attack was the result of a "shared mistake".

Pressure mounts on Sudan over Darfur force

LISBON (AFP) — The pressure was ratcheted up Saturday on Sudan for the deployment of a UN-led peacekeeping force to Darfur as EU leaders met President Omar al-Beshir on the sidelines of an ongoing summit here.

After the head of the African Union commission and UN chief Ban ki-Moon's deputy called for the immediate dispatch of the hybrid UN-AU force, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates expressed their concerns about delays directly to Beshir in Lisbon.

Joao Gomes Cravinho, Portugal's secretary of state for cooperation and development, described the hour-long meeting as "very frank" in which Europe's concerns were "rigorously conveyed".

Europeans Unlikely to Meet UN Darfur Goal

By CONSTANT BRAND

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — European nations look unlikely to meet an urgent U.N. call to provide military helicopters for a peacekeeping force planned for Darfur, saying their armies are already stretched by missions in Afghanistan, Kosovo and other hot spots.

More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million uprooted from their homes in Sudan's western Darfur region since a rebellion broke out in 2003, and many European governments have said they support deploying the peacekeeping force.

Despite the verbal support, no one has offered any of the 24 helicopters sought by U.N. officials.

Darfur: UN, African Union peace envoys hold talks with regional partners

3 December 2007 – The United Nations and African Union Special Envoys for Darfur are meeting tomorrow in Egypt with regional partners to the peace process in the war-torn Sudanese region to assess the progress so far and help forge agreement on the way forward.

Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim will hold talks in the town of Sharm el-Sheikh with representatives of Chad, Egypt, Eritrea and Libya, UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters.

The meeting is the latest step in the efforts of the UN and AU to broker a comprehensive peace accord to quell the violence and humanitarian suffering in Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and at least 2.2 million others displaced since rebels began fighting Government forces and allied militia known as the Janjaweed in 2003.